# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 01 04_S71
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

71

Testimony of Several Members of the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States Concerning the Grabau Controversy.

(Continuation and Conclusion.)

We repeat that we see ourselves compelled to this declaration for the sake of the truth and the good name of our Synod, and that we do not do it out of regard for Grabau. For this man has long since so blackened himself in our hearts and consciences by his own writings and the manner of his warfare that we cannot hope that any testimony of the truth would find entrance with him and bear the desired fruit. With him alone before us, we should hold it labor lost.

It requires no great independence of mind and impartiality to find out from the controversial writings of Grabau and of the Missourian Synod on which side the truth lies, and especially the honest, God-fearing disposition. We have followed this controversy with attention and have come to know Grabau thoroughly. The truth which he disputes is proved, is shown thoroughly, clearly, and irrefutably, though the man may twist and turn and seek to trouble the water ever so much, that he may either fish in troubled waters or conceal his defeat: it avails him nothing; he has put himself to shame by the truth and before the eyes of all truth-loving men. With a few impudent assertions and dictatorial pronouncements of authority the matter is not settled. Neither do anathemas and abusive words prove the truth. Or if Grabau demands such a taking captive of our faith, our reason, and our conscience under his groundless, self-righteous, and impudent assertions, then in complying we should indeed be precisely what he charges us with: blind servants of a man, and he must be a miniature pope. Now we are willing to leave him the latter, but for the former we have no desire; we will not let ourselves be blinded by him and be made subject to his crafty lust for dominion (1 Cor. 7, 23). Let him do so at his own peril who will.

Moreover, it has long since ceased to be a question with Grabau of truth or untruth; rather his paper, called Informatorium, shows most clearly that he now wages only a bitter, assassin-like warfare against persons whom he hates, especially Professor Walther, for which the noble truth must abusively lend its name as a cloak — a warfare which on Grabau's side has already sunk to a dishonorable, shameful boys' squabble. With sound arguments he does not operate. Where, indeed, should he get them for his errors? So he helps himself in another way. The impudent manner in which he and his adherents distort the meaning of their opponents and their words, the crafty, spiteful, and malicious assertions and accusations, which almost always lack the remotest ground, the unheard-of boldness with which he strikes the truth in the face, so that one at times no longer trusts one's eyes and ears, the whole malicious tendency of his paper are in truth startling and outrageous. One must often ask in amazement whether a man is capable of such things and does not fear God's judgment. Only the operations of popery and of the Jesuits furnish a parallel to this. Yet the latter rest, and sometimes at the beginning with true piety, upon the principle: ad majorem Dei gloriam. But what Grabau rests upon is an obscuratum*). How dreadful and dark it must look in a heart from which such a thing issues forth without shame and fear! We cannot any longer defend ourselves against the awful thought that conscious wickedness is here at play. The offense that has been given and the disgrace which has come upon the good cause through Grabau's truth-defying, twisted, and haughty obstinacy, let it fall upon his own head. We want no part in it. Yet he shall know that he has done us a conspicuous service, namely this, that through his opposition he has brought the doctrine of our Church concerning Church and Ministry more to light and to a more general, clearer consciousness. For this we thank him, as we thank the devil that he brought our Lord Christ to the cross, and as we thank the pope and the shameful Tetzel, Eck, etc., that they drove Luther into the work of the Reformation and into thorough Bible study. — Rottenprediger, Rottenbeschützer (preachers of a faction, protectors of a faction) he calls all the members of the Missourian Synod: how would it be if one proved to him that this title belongs to him, and still more than this? It is proved that he has unjustly banned many persons, namely all those who could not with a good conscience submit to his dominion or who dared to maintain that the truth lay on the side of the Missourian Synod. If now we have taken up the cause of such forsaken souls, and Grabau will not acknowledge his sin, as is plain as day, then it is not we who are the faction, but he is, with those who approve or defend his sin. Is it not an erroneous and factious tendency that he regards himself and his adherents as the Lutheran Church, and outside this little flock hardly any longer (properly none) acknowledges a pure Lutheran Church? Let him dare, just once, to retract publicly this tendency, current in his circle; let him dare to write in clear, plain words that he and those joined with him are not the Lutheran Church, but only a part of it, and that this one and that one is also a rightful Lutheran Church, and let his misguided congregation read it. We should then rejoice that at least this part of the truth is again coming into recognition and acceptance with his congregation. But he will surely find a serpent's path again to evade an open, honest confession of the truth and to preserve his congregation in the error that serves his purpose.

*) probably ad majorem ipsius gloriam.

What constitutes a heretic? Fundamentally assailing false doctrine joined with malicious obstinacy. Now Grabau's errors in his doctrine of Church and Ministry are well known, and these in their consequences are fundamentally assailing, as every error is. The strongest contrast between the Lutheran and the Roman Church consists in their respective relation to the Word of God and in the doctrine of the Church. The latter places the essence and the apostolicity of the Church in the (so-called) apostolic constitution, places itself therefore above God's Word, and makes the salvation of souls dependent upon the ecclesiastical office-bearers. The former places the foundation of the Church in the doctrine of the Apostles, in the objective Word of God, and makes everything, doctrine, faith, life, salvation of souls, dependent upon the Word. It places itself under the Word, and with and from it is and has everything that is Christ's, also the ministry.†) The distinguishing principle of the Lutheran Church is therefore the doctrine of the exclusive, sole authority and independent, objective power of the Word of God. Now how does Grabau stand toward this fundamental view of the Lutheran Church? He knows nothing of an objective, sole power of the Word of God, but makes the authority (inasmuch as he denies to the laity the ability to judge doctrine) and the power and effect of the Word, also of the Sacraments, dependent in part upon the office, that is, upon the office-bearer. This error he has clearly expressed in the controversy in question. But also in practice — and this is precisely the dreadful fruit of his errors — he binds souls with their faith and conscience — not to the Word — but to his person, and makes the salvation of souls, indeed everything, dependent upon his person. Thereby he stands wholly upon the standpoint of the Roman priests, yes, of the pope, and the whole biblical doctrine of salvation is necessarily affected. Only so is it also possible that Grabau in his circle is in fact a pontifex maximus, who holds all spiritual and temporal power in his hands. Temporal power? Does he not teach that the congregation must render him obedience in all things which are not contrary to God's Word? So much concerning his doctrine.

†) Without the Word it has nothing.

As to his obstinacy, one must ask whether there can be a man more obstinate, more malicious, and more unbending than Grabau has hitherto proved himself?

We know well indeed that Grabau will now, after his accustomed manner, reach as deep into his filth as ever possible, in order to us